Hi and welcome back, fans! We’re Purple Hazel, the husband and wife Indie writing duo from Denver who brought you the Sci Fi Adventure Romance novel Star Kitten and other fascinating E-books like Morgana’s Handmaid and The Wild Fields.

Deciding upon cover art for our books is a rather delightful challenge every time we finish a new novel. King will often propose a litany of ideas for the cover – sometimes for months leading up to final publication. But this time for Spanish Posse, our new book coming out on Smashwords in May 2016, we really tried to surpass ourselves.

Introducing: Evelyn Nesbit, one of America’s first super models as well as a beautiful woman with a truly fascinating life story.

King spent about six months writing what will be our fourth published book, Spanish Posse, back in 2013. He then sat on the work for three long years before finally bringing it out again and dusting it off for re-editing in February 2016. Of course, we’ve always been adamant about using interesting cover art for our books. The traditional format we see for romance novel covers usually involves a model posing before a background or superimposed over some form of scenery that’s related to the subject matter of the novel. But we wanted something different this time, so for a cover model for this book, King researched 19th Century Boudoir photos and century-old nude photographs to find just the right pose with just the right amount of skin; without being offensive.

That’s when we happened upon this lovely girl Evelyn Nesbit…who dazzled America back in the early 20th century with her incredibly elegant yet innocent beauty. Pictures such as this; as well as a nearly endless array of spectacular photographs and paintings could be found in print media most everywhere during her heyday in the early 1900’s. She was also one of the original Gibson Girls (models drawn by artist Charles Dana Gibson to represent the new ideal of the independent American woman of the 20th Century), as well as a famous chorus girl and singer.

The picture we chose, taken by Otto Sarony in 1902, simply blew our minds and we just had to borrow it from the dusty annals of history. Special thanks to Drewboy1964 for this pristine, well-preserved print of it. One hundred fourteen years old and it’s still timeless!

Evelyn Nesbit lived until 1967 when she died in Santa Monica, California at age 82. But her story is a remarkable one indeed. We were shocked at how similar she was to our main character Caroline in our new book Spanish Posse! Read more about her – in her own words – on Amazon Books by clicking here: Evelyn’s Memoirs (compiled and edited by Deborah Dorian Paul). She’s still famous nearly fifty years after her death.

Modern novels still get written about her too. Check out American Eve by Paula Uruburu also available on Amazon. She’s even been the subject of movies including The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing released in 1955 starring Joan Collins and Ray Milland. Then age 71, Evelyn Nesbit served as technical adviser on the film, but the movie was at best a fictional account of her life. King’s mom actually still remembered the film!

Thank you Evelyn ! Thank you for everything. Your beauty still inspires us to this day!